


Five times Clint got Phil a Christmas present, and one time he didn’t

by immoral_crow



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:21:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of presents, Christmas, love, and BAMFs. Featuring baubles, rogue elves, vodka, chestnuts, and a donkey. Sorry about the donkey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five times Clint got Phil a Christmas present, and one time he didn’t

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lil_1337](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_1337/gifts).



> My thanks to my most amazing beta, Mizzy. Darling, you are wonderful. And my own Nat, who helped with the Russian. Any mistakes that remain are all my own. Written for http://cc-exchange.livejournal.com for lil_1337

**1**

Clint wasn’t sure what made him decide to buy Phil Coulson a Christmas present. 

Truth be told, Clint wasn’t much for Christmas. What with the childhood from hell, and the orphanage, and the circus… well. He’d never really had the chance to acquire the taste for it. 

But he had the uneasy feeling that he _owed_ Coulson something. God knows, the first seven months that Clint had spent at SHIELD had hardly been a bed of roses. He’d been passed from handler to handler, each report increasingly damning, until Clint had known he was on his very last chance. 

When he’d been assigned to Coulson, Clint had taken in the bland face, the suit (off-the-peg and slightly ill-fitting) and his heart had sunk. There was no way out of this, he realised. He would have to keep his mouth shut or he would be out, and there were a very limited number of career paths for someone with Clint’s skill set. 

And he had tried – he really had… just? Well. Clint had encountered enough people in his life who demanded respect without earning it, so when he saw a better vantage point for the shot? He moved to it, and working on the basis that it would be better to seek forgiveness than to ask and be denied permission, he moved without telling anyone – leaving his earpiece behind him. 

He got the shot, and allowed himself a small buzz of satisfaction before he packed his gun away and climbed down. He was fairly sure he’d pushed his luck too far this time, but it was still a shock to find Coulson waiting for him when he hit the ground.

‘You didn’t mention you were changing your position, Barton.’ Coulson’s voice was cold, and it was a damn shame because Clint enjoyed this job, and had hoped he could work with this man. 

‘No, sir.’ Clint didn’t bother defending himself. It was pointless, he knew. All these agencies were the same, and he should have known better than to think he could fit in. 

‘And you left your earpiece out.’ Coulson looked at him impassively. ‘Care to explain why?’ 

‘Didn’t need it, sir. Knew I’d be in trouble for moving position, decided that it would impair my concentration if I had to listen to it while I was trying to take the shot.’

Coulson raised an eyebrow. ‘So why did you move?’

This wasn’t what Clint was expecting – none of his other handlers had asked why he’d preformed any of the actions he had before they wrote him up as insubordinate – and he made eye contact with Coulson. ‘Because it gave me a better shot,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

‘Right.’ Coulson didn’t look angry now; he looked more curious than anything. ‘And what would have happened if you’d encountered enemy forces without your earpiece?’ 

‘I’d have been taken or killed.’

Coulson nodded, as if he’d reached the same conclusions. ‘And this is an acceptable risk, is it? To get a better shot?’

Clint shrugged. ‘It’s bound to happen sooner or later,’ he said. 

‘You're talking as if you think you're expendable,’ Coulson said softly, the expression on his face unreadable. 

Clint snorted. ‘Are you honestly going to tell me I'm not?’ Clint was under no illusions as to the value of snipers to an organisation of SHIELD and he watched Coulson closely, interested to see if he would lie.

Interestingly, Coulson didn’t even seem to have to think twice. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am. You think I’d turn my back if you were taken?’

Clint raised an eyebrow. Of course Coulson would – anyone would. Clint had a list of people, from Barney to his last section leader in the Marines, who actually _had_.

‘Well, I won’t,’ Coulson said, his voice low and vehement. ‘Look, Barton, I don’t care how you think this operates, or who you’ve worked with before, but you need to understand this. You are not expendable, and we chose you because you are one of the best at what you do.’ He paused until he was sure he had Clint’s full attention. ‘You think you can get a better shot from a different point? Then you move. But you tell me, and you make damn sure you keep your earpiece in. Understand?’

Clint nodded, and Coulson seemed to think he’d got through, because he returned the gesture. ‘Good.’ He clapped Clint on the shoulder. ‘Glad we had this talk. You did good work today, and I look forward to acting as your handler.’

Then he was off, answering his radio and dealing with two flustered looking agents who had obviously been waiting for him. 

Clint watched him go, slightly taken aback. For the first time in his memory it felt like there was actually someone who cared if he lived or died. He grimaced. Emotions aside, for the first time since joining SHIELD he thought he might just be able to make this work.

\--

And that fairly much set the pattern for their relationship. 

There didn’t seem to be anything that Clint could throw at Coulson that made him even blink. If Clint wanted to choose his own perch? He had Coulson’s full backing. A bow instead of a gun? Fine. That time when Clint had to drop off the world for three days for “personal reasons”? Well, yes. _That_ time Coulson had shown up, uninvited but not particularly unexpected, and lent Clint a hand settling an old score. 

The point was, Clint had worked with Coulson for eleven months now, and he knew damn well that he would never have survived in SHIELD without him, so a Christmas present might not be much, but at least it was a way of acknowledging the debt between them. 

The only problem he had was that he did not have the slightest idea what to buy. 

He’d had presents before – of course he had – but the ones he could remember, the ones that didn’t end Christmas day broken under his father’s boot, still stung with their bitter taste of charity, and he had no idea at all what an adult would get for their boss. 

So, even though he started looking in November, it was Christmas Eve before he managed to find something that felt right. He took the clumsily wrapped box and tucked it onto Coulson’s desk, too embarrassed to give it to him directly, before joining the party in the mess. 

He’d been there for about twenty minutes, making painful small talk with one of the newest recruits, when Coulson turned up.

‘No one said we were doing Secret Santa this year,’ Coulson said, taking a glass of something red and deceptively fruity-looking from Hill and brandishing the box Clint had left on his desk. 

‘We’re not.’ Hill sounded horribly amused. She’d spent the last twenty minutes alternately spiking the punch and watching Fury, who was having the time of his life terrifying the more nervous agents. ‘Remember what happened two years ago? It took months to get the stains our of the boardroom carpet. Fury decided then. He even sent a memo.’

‘Huh.’ Coulson looked at the box again and shook it. ‘I got it scanned and it seemed safe, even if they wouldn’t tell me what was in it.’ He opened the box and looked at the cufflinks it contained. They were silver and fairly plain, but Clint had been quite proud of them in the end, and he waited for Coulson’s verdict with his heart in his mouth. ‘I like them,’ Coulson said, taking one of them out and examining it closely. ‘So, who got them for me then?’ 

‘Not me,’ Hill said. ‘I know better than to try and predict your style. Besides,’ she raised her glass to Fury, ‘I would never go against one of our glorious leader’s memos.’

‘Maybe you have a secret admirer?’ It was one of the officious pencil pushers from the second floor who shouted out, cocktail-brave, and even though Coulson glared him into submission quickly enough, the ripple of laughter from the other agents made it easy for Clint to decide that he wouldn’t say anything. 

He turned back to the agent next to him as the conversation around them resumed, cursing to himself. He should have known that gifts normally had some sort of tag on them.

Next year, he promised himself, he would get another present, and he would definitely make sure that Coulson knew it was from him. 

>.2

The problem with making resolutions, Clint realised, was that they could come back and bite you in the ass. 

‘I just…’ Coulson looked at him baffled. ‘No. No, I don’t. What the fuck, Barton?’

‘I…’ Clint said, gesturing grandly with his one free arm, ‘can explain _everything_. Just let us in, would you, Boss?’ 

Coulson raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he stood back and let them into the safehouse. Clint got as far as the sofa, where he dropped his burden, before pasting on his best innocent expression and turning round to face Coulson. 

Who was not looking amused. 

‘Would you like to take a seat, Barton, and explain to me who _this_ is?’ His voice was very carefully measured, but Clint could hear the anger behind it and wished (not for the first time that evening) that the Thing With The Eggnog hadn’t happened. 

‘I can’t, sir,’ he started, and that was all he managed before Coulson was on him, fist balled in Clint’s shirt. 

‘What do you mean _can’t_ , Barton?’ he hissed. ‘You left to check vantage points, and you come back drunk and with a woman, telling me you can’t say who she is…’

‘No!’ Even in his slightly muddled state, Clint thought it was important that Coulson understood this. ‘I can’t sit down, sir. I’m perfectly happy to tell you who she is.’ 

Coulson sighed and Clint rather thought that he would be beating his head against the wall if he had even the slightest tendency towards theatrics. ‘You know,’ he began, ‘I’m not even going to ask why you can’t sit down…’

‘Bauble related incident, sir.’

Coulson eyeballed him. ‘Like I just said, Barton, I’m not even going to ask, just tell me who she is.’

Clint took a deep breath, trying to work out how to tell Coulson that somehow the woman they were meant to be taking out (to whit, The Black Widow) had saved his (Clint’s) life in an unforeseen firefight (cf incident report 30791 (c): The Ninja Elf occurrence), and that he (Clint), in return, had kind of recruited her (Natasha Romanov, aka Black Widow, aka Natalia Alianovna Romanova). To SHIELD. 

Um…

‘Well?’ Coulson’s voice brooked no argument, and Clint was steeling himself when the woman on the sofa opened one eye.

‘’parrently I’m your Christmas present,’ she said, her voice noticeably slurred (she had borne the brunt of the Thing With The Eggnog after all). ‘Clint said so.’

Coulson looked at her. Then looked at Clint. Then looked at Natasha again.

Clint nodded. ‘Happy Christmas, Boss?’

Coulson didn’t cry, and that, Clint thought, had to count for something.

\--

‘If anyone asks,’ Clint said later as Coulson was using long tweezers to remove the last shard of a shattered bauble from his ass. ‘Can we say this happened in Budapest?’

‘And was suitably dark and serious?’ Coulson said, letting another wickedly long glass splinter drop into the kidney dish next to him. ‘Sure. Why not.’ 

‘Thanks, Boss.’ Clint let the last of his tension at this holly-decked shit-storm drain away. ‘You’re the best.’ 

‘Yes, well. It’s my reputation on the line too.’ Clint was sure he could hear fondness colour Coulson’s tone, but then Coulson rather ruined the moment by splashing rubbing alcohol onto the wound, and Clint’s resultant screams woke up Natasha, and that, as they say, was that. 

>.3

The thing about SHIELD was that agents tended to gossip like a bunch of schoolgirls, and by New Year there were as many stories of how the Black Widow had joined as there were staff members. 

What none of them mentioned was the unfortunate truth. 

Clint and Natasha did their best to keep it that way, spreading new and complex rumours whenever anyone got close to the mark. Neither of them was keen for it to be known that they had been forced to fight together when the elves in the mall they were in turned out to be a bunch of evil ninja dwarfs.

It rather dented the whole ‘superspy’ thing. 

Fortunately, Coulson seemed as good as his word, and by November even Clint was cautiously optimistic that the whole debacle was dead and buried. 

_Seriously_ , he thought, ducking to avoid an exploding angel. _What were the chances of this happening two years in a row?_

‘This,’ he hissed at Tasha as they reloaded behind a stack of Buzz Lightyears, ‘is all your fault.’ He tossed some clips to her, and checked to see what was happening over at Santa’s grotto. ‘ _What are you going to get for Coulson, Clint? Why don’t we go shopping together, Clint? It’ll be fun, Clint._ ’ He straightened, fired, and sank back into a crouched position. ‘I _told_ you there was nothing between us.’ 

Natasha snorted, only the faintest trace of blood marring the perfection of her shopping day outfit. ‘Of course there isn’t,’ she said, not even slightly out of breath, even though she had done the bulk of the fighting when the donkey from the manger had gone rogue. ‘You gaze at him; he gazes at you. Perfectly normal workplace behaviour. My mistake.’ 

‘He does not!’ Clint might have been a little loud with that outrage – there was an increased barrage of incoming fire for a few seconds, which all but drowned out Natasha’s noise of disbelief. ‘Coulson doesn’t _gaze_. He wouldn’t know how.’

‘What would you call it then?’ she asked, and Clint considered firing a warning shot at her. He decided against it – he might have a death wish (at least according to the SHIELD shrinks) but he wasn’t actually suicidal. 

‘He’s our handler,’ he said. ‘He watches us. I’m fairly sure it’s in his job description, y’know. To watch us.’

‘You,’ Natasha said, throwing a Buzz Lightyear with merciless precision, and concussing an elf, ‘are so deep in denial it is not even funny. You have definitely been pining.’

Clint gasped in horror. ‘I was not!’ he said. ‘I don’t pine. I don’t know _how_ to pine.’

Natasha shot him a seriously unimpressed look. ‘Seriously, Barton? It’s ridiculous. I don’t know how he hasn’t seen it. Your pining is so epic it has its own zip code.’

‘He hasn’t noticed it though, right?’ Clint couldn’t keep the terror out of his voice, and Natasha’s expression softened. 

‘Would that be so bad if he did?’ she asked, and Clint couldn’t answer. 

Instead he took to his feet and drew fire, allowing Natasha to get to the grotto and take out Santa with an improvised garrotte. 

All in all, it didn’t end that badly, and even if the donkey had… splattered somewhat, and the members of the NYPD who turned up to help with the clean up would be removing all the tinsel from their houses when they got home, and Clint himself had had to explain to a group of distraught six year olds that it hadn’t actually been Santa that the nice lady had killed... well. The incident report made it to Fury’s wall of infamy, _and_ he managed to find the perfect tie for Coulson. 

He was still oddly nervous though when he donned his best suit on Tasha’s instructions and went down to give the present to Coulson. He’d even remembered the gift tag this time. 

He knew Coulson had had a meeting after work, and he caught him just outside the restaurant that the meeting had been scheduled at according to Coulson’s calendar. 

Coulson was with a tall blond woman, elegant and perfectly poised. She was talking in a low tone on her cellphone. Clint didn’t recognise her, which probably meant that Coulson had pulled the short straw and was CIA liaison again. 

‘Barton!’ Coulson sounded surprised to see him, but not displeased. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Clint grinned. ‘I just realised that I hadn’t given you your Christmas present, and…’

‘And I wouldn’t want to miss out on that, yes? Not after last year.’ Coulson’s words were mocking, but his smile was kind. 

Clint handed the gift over, wishing the CIA agent would take the hint and leave, but even that faded into the background when Coulson smiled at the tie. 

‘Thanks, Barton,’ he said. ‘It’s perfect. Look, I’m glad you’re here,’ he darted a look at his companion and lowered his voice, ‘I was wondering…’ 

There was something in the tone of his voice that made Clint’s heart stutter, but before Coulson could say any more, the woman finished her call and slid her arm round his waist. 

‘What’s happening, Phil?’ she asked, smiling at Clint.

‘Darling,’ Coulson said, smiling at her with a warmth Clint had not seen before. ‘This is Clint Barton, from work. Clint, this is Leah. She’s a cellist with the New York Philharmonic.’ 

Clint smiled, helpless in the face of Coulson’s proud introduction. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.’

She offered her hand to Clint and he shook it, feeling unusually clumsy in the face of her poise. ‘The pleasure’s all mine,’ she said. ‘Phil’s always talking about you.’ Her smile was warm, but her eyes were assessing, and Clint couldn’t help but wonder what Coulson had said about him. 

‘I was just asking Clint if he’d like to join us for a drink,’ Coulson said. ‘I think we have time before the concert?’

‘Oh, that would be lovely.’ Clint knew that no one wanted their date interrupted, but Leah looked genuinely enthusiastic. ‘I’d love to get to talk to you, Clint. You can tell me all the embarrassing stories about Phil that he doesn’t want me to know.’

Clint smiled at the faint look of horror in Coulson’s eyes, but he had planned something very different for this evening, and watching Coulson with his girlfriend just didn’t seem the same.

‘I really shouldn’t,’ he said. ‘You guys should just get on with your evening.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Coulson said. ‘We never get to spend time together outside work. Just one drink? To thank you for the present?’

It was tempting, but Leah’s smile had turned slightly fixed and Clint decided that he really should make his excuses. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, forcing sincerity into his words. ‘But I have plans already.’ He gestured at his suit and smiled. ‘I just thought I’d catch Phil since I saw him, and we missed each other at the office today.’ 

Leah’s smile took on a warmer edge, but Coulson looked like he still wasn’t convinced, and Clint was seriously considering just bolting when Natasha appeared at his elbow, silent as a whisper and sleek and lovely in a little black dress. 

‘That’s where you got to!’ she exclaimed in a wholly artificially breathy voice and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and God, Clint was going to have words with her later for spying on his love life. 

For now though he swallowed down a wave of dizzying gratitude and slid his arm round her waist. ‘Yes,’ he said, forcing himself to smile at her. ‘Sorry for running off. I wanted to give Phil his Christmas present.’

Natasha smiled at Phil and Leah, something dazzling, but with more than an edge of teeth. ‘Well, if you’ve given it now, we have reservations, so I need to steal Clint back.’ She inclined her head like a duchess, and pulled Clint away with an iron grip on his arm. 

Clint risked a glance backwards as he followed her. Leah had turned away, the interruption to their evening already forgotten, but Coulson was watching Clint and Natasha, with an unreadable expression on his face. 

Clint still wasn’t sure what Coulson had been about to say before they were interrupted, and the question nagged at him, even after he’d lost sight of the couple. 

\--

They didn’t have reservations. They got cartons of takeout and a bottle of pertsovka and went up to the roof of Tasha’s apartment. 

They ate and drank in silence, watching the lights of the city and the hum of activity from the street beneath them. 

‘So,’ Clint said eventually, when the vodka was all but gone, and his feelings were pleasantly blunted. ‘This is my life then.’ He raised a glass to Tasha. ‘Destined to die alone, eh?’

She clinked glasses with him and wriggled until he put his arm around her. 

‘You have me.’ Her voice was very quiet, but she was warm next to him, and Clint’s vision was suddenly blurred with a haze of tears.

‘Yeah.’ He bent his head and sniffed her hair, breathing in the scent of her perfume and skin. ‘I love you, you know that, don’t you Tash?’

She made a noncommittal noise, but pushed closer into the heat of his body, and things, yeah. They were probably okay. 

>.4

Clint knew exactly what he was getting Phil the next Christmas, but the knowledge did nothing to make him smile. 

Tasha went with him to the shop – a tiny, rundown thing in Soho, London. She stood, grave-faced and silent next to him while he made his choice, and then took him to the nearest pub and bought him a pint of bitter. Then another one. And another. 

She kept darting him concerned looks when she thought he wasn’t looking, but Clint could see perfectly, thank you. Couldn’t stop seeing, and nothing anything anyone could say or do would make a difference. 

He knew she would be happier if he would cry, or talk, or something, but Clint _couldn’t_. Instead he took her comfort for what it was, well intentioned but inevitably futile, and tried to carry on. He owed the people he’d killed that much.

He owed Phil that much. 

‘What are you going to do with it?’ she asked when they were on the plane back to New York. 

‘Put it on his grave.’

Natasha’s mouth twisted into a moue of disapproval. ‘It’ll be ruined,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t have wanted that.’

‘Well,’ Clint drained his whiskey. ‘He shouldn’t have died then, should he?’

She didn’t have anything to say to that. Clint knew she wouldn’t, but her fingers were warm on the back of his hand and it helped. Just a little. 

\--

‘Barton, Romanov.’ Fury caught them as they were just about to leave the building on Christmas Eve. ‘I need you in the briefing room.’ 

Clint shrugged and they both turned to follow. He’d wanted to get to the cemetery today, but frankly there wasn’t a gate that could keep him out, so he followed Fury and kept his mouth shut. 

The rest of the Avengers were waiting when they got there. Tony was bitching (as always), Steve was trying to talk him down, and Bruce was watching them with a tiny smile on his face. 

‘So, what’s going on?’ Clint asked, fixing Fury with his best unimpressed face. ‘It’s Christmas Eve and some of us have places to be.’

Fury frowned at him, but didn’t respond. If Clint didn’t know better he’d think Fury was nervous. 

‘So,’ Fury said. ‘I am aware you are about to whinge like a bunch of pre-schoolers, but remember, before you do, it was the only option at the time.’

‘What?’ Tony was frowning in confusion, but Natasha was already exuding menace from every pore. 

Fury sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Get in here,’ he shouted, and door at the far end of the room opened. 

‘Rumours of my death,’ Phil said, ‘may have been slightly exaggerated.’

Natasha was immediately at Clint’s side, her hand firm on his arm while the others milled around Phil like a pack of hopeful puppies. Clint pulled the Captain America card from his pocket and turned it over and over with sweaty fingers, looking at Phil, unable to process what had happened. 

It took a while for things to calm down – Tony, when you started to access his emotions, seemed to have a problem turning them off, and with Steve stammering apologies and focussing his smile on Phil… well. There was no one to rein him in. 

Eventually it died down though, until only Tony was left. Phil looked round the room, his eyes lighting up with something that looked like relief when he saw Clint and Natasha. He waved Tony off and walked slowly over to them, and it must have been a trick of his posture, but for a second it seemed to Clint as though Phil was staring at Natasha’s hand on his arm. 

‘Hey,’ Phil said, smiling hesitantly at Clint. 

Natasha nodded. ‘Coulson.’ Her voice was cold, and Clint was almost overwhelmed by the support she was willing to give him. 

‘Clint?’ Phil’s voice was hesitant, and Clint realised he should say something, welcome Phil back. 

He had to force himself to even look at Phil, but once he did he found himself holding out the card. ‘Here,’ he said, barely unable to recognise his own voice. ‘I got this for you.’

‘You…’ Phil swallowed audibly. ‘You knew I was alive?’

There was a fragile hope in his eyes, but Clint forced himself to look away. 

‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought you were dead and I was going to put it on your grave.’ He risked a look at Phil, and tried to supress the vicious joy that filled him when he saw Phil’s stricken expression. ‘So, Happy Christmas, sir.’ He turned on his heel. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’

Clint didn’t bother looking back; he just went to the nearest 24/7 where he bought the cheapest bottle of vodka he could find and then sought sanctuary on the roof of Natasha’s old building. 

He was only there for about twenty minutes before she joined him. 

‘As traditions go,’ she said slumping into his body and stealing his heat like she was entitled to it, ‘this one sucks.’

‘Eh.’ He passed her the bottle. ‘You get the traditions you deserve in this world I reckon.’

‘My mother had a saying. _Ne bylo by schast'ya, da neschast'ye pomoglo_.’

Clint squinted at her. ‘Gesundheit?’

She shot him a death stare, and Clint flailed vaguely at her, passing the bottle in recompense. 

‘It means,’ she said, continuing like he hadn’t spoken, ‘ _I would have had no luck, if not for misfortune_. It means… don't your good memories of Phil, and your life since he's been your handler… isn't that worth it? However bad you feel.’

Clint shrugged. ‘He _lied_ to us, Tasha. To us. I thought he was dead, and I mourned, and all that time he was alive.’

‘And now he’s back,’ she said, like it was that simple. ‘And you get the rest of your life to make him pay for that. And you get him back, Clint. Not many people get that chance.’ 

She drank deeply from the bottle, and Clint pulled her close because she never shared this much about herself. 

‘I just don’t know if I can,’ he said. ‘It can’t be the same. Not after this.’

‘So, it’ll be different. That’s not necessarily bad,’ she said, passing back the bottle. ‘Trust me. It’ll be fine. In the end, you’ll work it out.’

>.5

It took a while, but it did work out. Oddly, it was Tony who was largely the catalyst, because the man could not take no for an answer when he had his mind set on something. He’d set his mind on the Avengers moving to the Stark Tower after the Battle of New York, and not even Fury’s opposition could stop him. 

Mind you, Clint had always suspected that Fury’s opposition had been primarily aimed at getting Stark to act in the exact way he had, so…

Clint hadn’t been expecting him to insist that Phil should move in with them as well though. 

‘It makes sense!’ Tony said. ‘He’s our handler, Clint. He should be on-site.’

‘Fine,’ Clint said. ‘Do what you want, Stark.’

‘Huh.’ Tony looked up from his equations and fixed his eyes on Clint. ‘I didn’t think you’d have a problem with this. I always thought you had a secret fondness for Agent, Clint.’ 

‘Emotions have never been your strong point though, have they?’ Natasha wandered into the room and perched on the edge of the table. ‘Might you have been… mistaken?’ She gave Tony her sweetest smile and he paled noticeably. 

‘I could be,’ he said, and Clint had to hide a smirk at his complete capitulation. 

\--

‘He’s right, you know,’ she said later when she and Clint were alone. ‘It makes sense for Phil to move in.’

‘Well,’ Clint said, raising an eyebrow at her. ‘I’m not stopping him.’

She snorted. ‘You know he won’t move in while you’re like this.’ She sighed at Clint’s shrug. ‘Ptenchik, you need to get over it. I know you’re hurt, but this isn’t helping. You’re upsetting him and you’re making yourself miserable.’ 

She was right, but Clint couldn’t find the words to tell her. Instead he continued repairing the fletching on one of his arrows until she kissed him on the forehead and left him to his thoughts. 

\--

He didn’t know how to talk to Phil either, so he took the obvious way out and simply moved Phil’s stuff into the Tower while Phil was closeted in a meeting with Fury. 

Then he retreated to the range and shot arrow after arrow at the targets until his mind was calm, and the rest of the Avengers had welcomed Phil to his new home. 

\--

After that things got easier again. 

Phil came back to work, this time as liaison for the Avengers. He was as unflappable as ever, and even Clint, who was still trying to keep his distance, found missions easier with Phil’s voice instructing him through the comms system. 

It took a while until Clint relaxed enough to banter with Phil again, and even then it was only when Phil accompanied him and Natasha on a solo mission that things approached anything like normal. Things had even recovered enough that Clint planned to get another Christmas present – something that would make up for the Captain America card-of-disaster incident. 

But while Tony seemed to have a knack for unexpectedly fixing things, he also had a tendency to throw a spanner in the works, and somehow the ‘couple of Christmas drinks’ that he insisted on before Clint went out shopping got a little out of hand, and… 

‘Happy Christmas, Boss.’

Clint wasn’t sure he had ever seen Phil looked gobsmacked before, but there was obviously a first time for everything. 

‘Barton?’ 

Clint grinned up at him from the bed, the small movement sending the baubles hung over his ears into a gentle swing, and Phil tracked the arc of the curve like a cat before clearing his throat. 

‘Agent,’ Phil said, and Clint frowned. There was a definite edge of concern to Phil’s voice now that had no place being there. ‘Have you been compromised?’

Clint blinked at Phil in confusion. ‘No?’ he said. 

‘You don’t sound sure.’ Phil frowned, and reached into his pocket. 

The problem, Clint realised as Phil trained a gun on him with one hand and flipped open his cell with the other, with having feelings for someone as capable and hard-assed as Phil was that apparently even the simplest romantic gesture was destined to go awry. 

And then Phil said ‘Code Blue’ into the phone, the Avengers arrived… and Clint’s humiliation was complete. 

\--

It took a little time before it was all sorted out. In fact it was easier to persuade them that he hadn’t been compromised (‘Romantic gesture!’ he’d squawked at Natasha, while Phil looked on in obvious bewilderment) than it was to get Stark to stop laughing. 

‘Truly,’ Thor said, beaming down at Clint when the message had finally got through. ‘I am most pleased to see the traditions of Yule are honoured here. ’Tis like I always say…’

‘No.’ Steve had his best Captain America expression on. ‘We will not be embracing nudity.’

Thor frowned. ‘But friend Hawk here…’

‘Has very specific reasons for what he’s…’ Steve glanced down at Clint and the ribbon that was doing an average job of protecting his modesty and sighed, ‘wearing, and none of those reasons apply to you, which means you have to keep _your_ pants on, Thor.’

It was amazing, Clint thought, how an actual god – who even looked like a god (well, the better class of god anyway. Clint didn’t think Thor has tentacles, and to be fair, they’d all had had a chance to check for those before Jane had managed to house train him) – could manage to look so much like a petulant toddler. Still, he followed Steve from the room, a still sniggering Tony in their wake. 

He let his head slump back on the sofa he’d been put on and closed his eyes. He could hear Natasha talking to Phil in a low, urgent tone, but he deliberately didn’t try to work out what she was saying. He had no idea why he’d thought waiting naked on Phil’s bed, draped in an artfully arranged bow would be a good idea… It must have been temporary, cocktail-induced madness.

‘Here.’ Bruce’s voice startled him from his reverie and he opened his eyes to see Bruce offering him a warm-looking dressing gown. ‘No one ever thinks to offer me clothes when I need them.’ Bruce shrugged, managing to convey two year’s worth of embarrassment at media-captured nudity in one movement, and Clint couldn’t even find it in himself to argue: he took the robe and slipped from the room unnoticed.

Time for plan b – the Barton Christmas tradition of vodka and self loathing. 

\--

**+1**

He didn’t even have Natasha this year. Stupid Fury and his stupid missions had seen to that. 

So, Clint had holed up in his apartment with enough booze to last the duration, and a polite request to JARVIS that he not be disturbed unless the building was on fire, thank you very much. 

It was a good plan, he thought. Booze and bad Christmas movies. Who needed human company when you had Bill Murray and _Scrooged_? And it worked. Save for one interruption when Tony tried to apologise, he remained undisturbed; by the time he staggered to bed in the small hours of Christmas Eve he was in a pleasantly numb haze, and ready to sleep off this bout and start again when he woke up. 

Only another 36 hours and he’d be done with it for this year – and next year, he vowed, he’d copy Tasha’s example and get out of the damned country for the whole holiday period. 

By the time he woke up, the room was lit by the weak light of the December sun, and he thanked the foresight that had prompted him to put a glass of water by the side of the bed, even if he didn’t remember doing it. 

It took a while for him to get out of bed, and it probably would have taken longer if Clint hadn’t heard the distinctive sound of dropped crockery in the kitchen. 

‘Tony?’ He winced at the sound of his own raised voice. ‘I thought we covered this last night. We’re fine. You have nothing to apologise for. Now, fuck off, would you?’ 

He staggered out of bed and pulled on some jeans while he was speaking – he’d lived with Stark for long enough that he knew it would take more than a request to get him to leave well enough alone. 

The smell of coffee brewing hit him as soon as he opened the bedroom door, and, yeah. Stark was an ass, but Clint could suddenly see that the man had redeeming features and probably wouldn’t hurt him when he threw him out. Much. 

He made it most of the way across the lounge before these charitable impulses evaporated. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, by the TV, presents nestled underneath and lights twinkling in its boughs, and for a second Clint was transported back to the days when he’d had a home… and was naïve enough to believe that he could have any of the shiny things that the real families on his mom’s TV shows had. 

Clint gritted his teeth. Stark always pushed his luck, but this was a step too far, and it was only the smell of coffee that kept Clint from stalking back to his bedroom and barricading himself in. 

The crashing in the kitchen was loud enough that Tony probably hadn’t heard him, and Clint decided to take advantage of the situation. A decent shock should stop Tony from interfering where he wasn’t wanted next time. Well, it might at least, and even if it didn’t it would cheer Clint up no end right now. 

He crept to the kitchen, silent enough that Tony couldn’t have heard him even if he hadn’t been crashing Clint’s saucepans like they were drums, and stopped dead in his tracks. Because it wasn’t Tony. It was Phil. 

Finding Phil in the kitchen would have been shocking enough, but Phil was apparently… cooking. 

There was a turkey, uncooked and looking ever so slightly worse for wear on the side, a range of partially peeled vegetables covering the table, and Phil… Phil was using more concentration than Clint had ever seen him exert on what appeared to be a bowl of stuffing. 

Clint presumed it was stuffing, anyway. The sausage meat seemed to be making a fairly successful bid for freedom, and Phil was swearing quietly under his breath as he tried to crack open some chestnuts. Clint suspected he shouldn’t be beating them with the milk pan – from the look of things it was sending the nuts ricocheting around the kitchen more often than it was cracking them open. 

His bad mood evaporated – Clint rarely got to watch Phil unobserved, and he had never seen him being any less than perfectly competent at what he was doing. And he wasn’t doing a bad job, Clint would give him that, it was just that he was obviously well outside his comfort zone. 

Clint would have watched for much longer, but the latest chestnut to escape Phil’s increasingly frenzied attack headed straight for the coffee, and Clint had no choice. He dived, acrobatically, over the table and caught the nut just before it hit the filter pot. 

Phil looked up, and looked so chagrined that Clint had to laugh. 

‘Sorry, Boss,’ he said, grapping the pot and holding it triumphantly aloft. ‘Not sure if you were planning a new coffee blend there, but I felt I had to step in.’

‘Yeah, well. That wasn’t _exactly_ my plan,’ Phil said, still doing a credible impression of a school-boy caught mid-mischief. ‘They’re meant to go in the stuffing, but they seem to have a mind of their own.’

‘I can see that.’ Clint grinned. ‘Would a coffee help?’

Phil nodded gratefully, and Clint fetched two mugs from the cupboard. 

‘So, what are you doing, Boss?’

Phil grimaced. ‘It’s meant to be a sausage meat and chestnut stuffing,’ he said. ‘But at this rate it will be onions and a partially destroyed kitchen.’ 

Clint laughed. ‘I can see how that’s on the cards,’ he said. ‘But I kinda meant, what are you doing _here_?’ 

Phil coloured. ‘Well, for one reason or another,’ he said, ‘I thought you might like to spend Christmas with me.’ He shrugged, and Clint could see an unfamiliar tension in the movement. ‘I could be wrong?’ 

‘No.’ The word was out before Clint could even process what Phil was saying. ‘I just wasn’t expecting to see you like this, that’s all. Specially not romancing a turkey.’

He could see the moment when Phil relaxed, a small smile quirking his lips. 

‘Ah, well. In that case I completely understand.’ Phil’s eyes flicked down, and Clint realised that he hadn’t bothered putting a shirt on in his mad stumble from bed to kitchen. 

‘I should get dressed,’ Clint said. ‘Are the others coming down? Have I been nominated as the Christmas host this year?’ 

‘Not exactly,’ Phil said. ‘I mean, I don’t know. I didn’t really ask them. But Natasha’s away, Thor’s with Jane, and Bruce has gone on retreat. I think,’ his forehead crinkled, ‘that Tony’s taken Steve skiing. Or that was his excuse anyway. So, it’s just me.’

‘Right.’ Clint would have to admit, he was a little bit confused right now. ‘There’s kinda a lot of food here for two though.’ 

‘Yeah, well,’ Phil shrugged. ‘I’m not really used to cooking.’

Clint valiantly forbore to comment, hiding his smirk in his coffee. ‘What possessed you to try now?’

‘I thought you might want to spend Christmas with me,’ Phil said. ‘And I thought, if I was going to do this, I may as well do it properly.’ 

Clint did laugh at that. ‘Well, you’re doing that right enough.’ He looked round at the food and the decorations. ‘Most people only go to this sort of effort if it’s a date.’

He grinned at Phil, expecting him to laugh at the sally, but Phil blushed and became suddenly very interested in the chestnut he was holding. 

‘I was hoping that maybe it could be,’ Phil said, and Clint was fairly sure his jaw dropped in shock. 

‘But it can’t be,’ he blurted out before his brain caught up with his mouth, and wanted to slap himself at the look of mortification that flooded Phil’s face. ‘No, not like that. Just… you’re not interested in me.’

‘Wait.’ Phil looked at him, completely focussed, his hesitancy dropping away like it had never been there. ‘What? Not interested in you? Of course I’m interested in you, Clint.’

Clint sat down heavily. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m fairly sure you’re not. I mean…’ he dredged his memory for evidence. ‘What about Leah?’

Phil laughed. ‘You’re using a relationship that ended nearly two years ago to question my motives?’

‘Well,’ Clint began. ‘She was…’ He paused, rejected _smart, funny, into classical music, suited to you_ , ‘a woman.’

‘I’m fairly sure she still is,’ Phil said. ‘How does that make a difference?’

He looked so sincere that Clint found himself believing the words. 

‘So you’re…’

‘Interested in you?’ Phil nodded. ‘Of course I am, Clint.’ He dragged his hand through his hair, and grinned ruefully. ‘I thought I’d ruined everything. Last Christmas… I thought I didn’t have any chance with you – and it made me realise that all those stupid reasons I’d made to myself to justify not telling you were pointless. That I should have said something while I had a chance. And I coped with that. I thought that if we could still work together, that would be enough. And it was. It could be.’ He looked at Clint, his expression completely open. ‘But then you said that the whole thing last night was a “romantic gesture” and I thought, if you were still prepared to go to those lengths for me, well, the least I could do was to make the effort. Put myself out there too. Tell you what I want.’

Clint looked at him, his heart in his mouth. ‘So, what is it that you want?’

‘I want to give you a proper Christmas,’ Phil said. ‘I want to see if this could work out.’ 

‘Yeah. That sounds,’ Clint swallowed down the memories of past Christmases, of a tradition of vodka and rooftops, ‘that sounds good. So, trees and presents and turkey then?’ He smiled hesitantly at Phil, who beamed back at him. 

‘I figured you hadn’t had that many traditional Christmases,’ he said. ‘It seemed like the thing to do.’

‘I thought,’ Clint said, assuming his best look of feigned innocence, ‘that Christmases traditionally featured mistletoe?’

Phil’s eyes crinkled with his smile. ‘You think I’d miss out something like that?’

Clint didn’t have time to say anything before Phil was next to him. 

‘You should learn to look up,’ Phil said. He put one hand on the back of Clint’s head and tilted Clint’s chin up with his index finger. ‘See?’

Sure enough, there was a massive bunch of mistletoe suspended from the ceiling by a purple ribbon, but Clint didn’t have a chance to comment because Phil straddled his thighs and bent down to kiss him. 

He’d spent some considerable time wondering what it would be like, kissing Phil. Just idle speculation, you understand. After Leah, he’d kinda thought that Phil would be hesitant, that Clint would lead the encounter. That thought had got him through several lonely nights and the time he was captured in Chechnya. 

The reality was nothing like he’d imagined. 

Phil was not hesitant in the slightest. His hands were firm on Clint’s face, and his body fit against Clint’s like he was made to be there. He bit at Clint’s lips, swallowing Clint’s moan and licking into his mouth, sure and powerful and in control. 

And this, this was good. Better than Clint could have thought. With his build and background he was used to being in control, and to sit back and let Phil take charge was something new. There were very few people Clint would surrender power to, and the implications of this trust were as dizzying as the kiss. 

When Phil pulled away, Clint knew his lips were swollen, and Phil? Looked wrecked. Clint couldn’t help it, he fisted his hand in the open neck of Phil’s shirt and pulled him close again, pressing kisses to the corner of his mouth, his jaw, down the line of his neck. 

Phil stopped him in the end, laughing as he pulled back and pinned Clint against the chair. 

‘I need to get the turkey on, you know,’ he said. ‘Or we’ll never eat today.’

‘I can live with that,’ Clint said, wriggling to wrap his legs around Phil and stopping him from getting out of reach. 

‘Ah,’ Phil neatly sidestepped Clint’s so-cunning trap. ‘But presents. You can have presents while the dinner’s in the oven.’

Clint bit his lip. He’d not had presents for years, and there had been several brightly coloured parcels under the tree, but… ‘I think I have everything I want, Boss,’ he said, grinning at Phil. ‘Right here.’

Phil looked incredibly fond. ‘It’s not a choice, Clint. You get to have both, you know.’ He leant down and kissed Clint’s forehead. ‘Look, I know you haven’t had a good experience of Christmas, yeah? And I want to do this for you.’ He hesitated. ‘I want to do this for us. So we have our own traditions together.’

Clint swallowed. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, okay. I can understand that.’

‘Good.’ Phil stepped back and offered Clint his hand, pulling him to his feet. ‘Now go and pour some eggnog or something while I get this on.’

He turned back to the stuffing, a small smile on his face and Clint decided he owed Tasha a thank-you text before lunch. He grabbed a couple of glasses, and was just pouring some eggnog from the carton Phil gestured at in the fridge when Phil cleared his throat. 

Clint turned, glass in hand, and Phil raised an eyebrow at him. 

‘It occurs to me,’ he said, and Clint could hear the smile behind his words. ‘That turkeys take a few hours to cook, so… Yeah. Don’t worry too much about getting dressed, okay?’ He smiled, and it lit up his face with a mix of sheer happiness and devilment. ‘I’m sure we can find some way to keep you warm.’

Yeah, Clint grinned. Tasha definitely deserved a text. Happy Christmas, indeed.


End file.
